There are huge potential savings to be had at housing auctions compared to regular home sales for cash investors. However, people are often still afraid to do it because nobody wants to purchase a house without knowing anything about it. While that's always an issue because you cannot have a home inspector at a house that is about to be auctioned, you can still gather as much information as possible beforehand.

One great website is Retran, which has a list of houses that are about to go for auction and they also include the hotline phone numbers you can contact to verify if the auction date is still the same, or if they've rescheduled it. You can also find out how much the starting bid is, which will narrow down the houses you are going to focus on. What is even better, you can specify your search criteria to dollar amounts and scroll down to see which homes are the very best deals in the area.

Go visit each house and take a photograph. However please remember that not all of the houses are vacant, so don't disturb the people living in the property by poking around the house without consent. While there, take a look around and see what type of condition the home is in from where you are standing. Before you leave, take a look at the roof, especially right at the very top and see if it looks tattered. You may also want to talk to the neighbors and see what they have to say about the history of the home and neighborhood.

If you are an investor who wants to make a number of purchases, but can't cover all areas at once, you may be able to get the assistance of a real estate agent on your team to help you do all of the footwork. Plus, there may be a time where it is critical to have someone who is at a desk to answer last minute questions you may not know the answer to while you're standing at the courthouse steps. Then when you sell the property, you already have an agent you can trust to put the house on the market.